With each week that goes by at this time of year, we lose almost half an hour of daylight. That means the sunrise is fifteen minutes earlier than it was the previous week.... and THAT seemed early!

We're ploughing headlong into the tricky summer months, where chasing the dawn light becomes an enormous commitment. This morning my alarm went off at 4.40am, and for the first time in what seems like an age, I very nearly rolled over and went back to sleep. Except I didn't. I am a light-chasing ninja, tirelessly committed to the cause! For now.

So with that in mind, I was in the car before 5 am and by 5.20 am was heading off into the sleepy surroundings of Kings Wood near Ashford, laden with a heavy backpack. The birds were slowly chorusing and a Tawny Owl's plaintiff hoots were echoing in the canopy far above me.

I wasn't especially enamoured with the light or the conditions, but when I took the image (above) I had an artistic vision of the woodland awakening from its slumber. The area I was shooting in was perfect, with massive mature beech trees well spaced out from one another, each one slowly rising to greet the new day as the sun's rays danced on their statuesque trunks.

This is a fresh process of an image I captured in mid-Autumn last year. I’ve learnt so much about processing in the past few months that I’m now at a stage where I’ve begun looking at many of my older images with a critical eye, and I’ve been inspired to come back to one of two of them to give them a new lease of life.